280 TRAINING THE TROTTING HORSE. 



l^ou are fortunate if you can have a soil and can 

 build a track that need not be harrowed. Tracks that 

 become deep and heav}^ are bad for training. The colt 

 strains, the sulky draws hard, and the action is inter- 

 fered with. The horse should trot on a smooth sur- 

 face, wdiere the sulky and the weight it carries draws 

 as lightly as j^ossible. The track that can be kept in 

 order by simply scraping and sprinkling is the best. 

 The aim is to have the track smooth yet spring}^, to 

 have it clean without being hard, and elastic without 

 being clinging. 



At Palo Alto we w^et the track every night and har- 

 row it every morning. We try to have as little dirt as 

 possible on its surface, and yet not have it hard enough 

 to jar. Last fall w^e had our track in such shape that 

 only sprinkling and scraping was necessary. This was 

 brought about by plowing, manuring, then plowing the 

 manure under, after which it was sown with rye. 

 When the rye was about two feet high we plowed it 

 under, not very deeply, and then shaped up the track. 

 The rye was sown December 10th and plowed under 

 March 1st. 



The great point in track building is to get a perfect 

 cushion — one that is smooth, springy and clean, where 

 there is a certain amount of yielding when the foot 

 strikes, but yet no softness of surface. 



To the point w^here we branched off track work to 

 consider stabling and stable care w^e will now return. 

 The colt was going smooth and true and was per- 

 fectly balanced, or else you had failed to rightly inter- 

 pret and apply my instructions; for, though it is a 

 repetition of what has already been said, if he became 



